


this half-awake world

by oliverwvvd



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Comfort/Angst, Flintwood, M/M, Not Safe For Emotions, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-01
Updated: 2017-06-01
Packaged: 2018-11-07 17:46:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11064015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oliverwvvd/pseuds/oliverwvvd
Summary: The war is at an end. The emotions that stirs in Marcus, now that he can feel at all, are a tangle. [Trigger warning: PTSD.]





	this half-awake world

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flintwoodandco](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flintwoodandco/gifts).



It’s eleven in the morning. The war is over. Marcus has just slept for more than four hours for the first time he can remember in months.

It’s eleven in the morning, and there’s legs tangled through his for the first time in months too. This is the shape of the world now, half-awake and waiting for the possibilities of what might happen next. Instead of feeling what he should feel ( _relief_ , crippling relief), all he feels like doing is sobbing into his hands like a lost child who can’t find the road home. Surely that’s not normal? Surely that isn’t what’s going to happen?

Instead of feeling like they were both lucky, so incredibly lucky to make it through, Marcus feels like crumbling in a way that he’s held off on doing for such a long time. He sits up in bed, winces slightly at the bruising still littering his abdomen, and takes a few unsteady breaths, rests his forehead to his knees.

They’re _safe_. It’s over.

When he feels lips touch to his shoulder, arms go around him, he realises his face is wet, that his eyes are sore.

“It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

Two sentences, spoken by a voice that the entirety of him orbits around in those few seconds like some hopeless comet circling the sun that will eventually consume him. _There are worse ways to go._ He turns his face blindly into the warm skin of Oliver’s neck, and he kisses there, tilts his face up and finds lips in desperation not to drown in anything but this, to suffocate whatever _this_ is and make it go away.

Months of suppression, of not letting himself think of Oliver like this or the impossibility of their situation, caught in the crossfire and just trying to get through one more day without dying. Emotions were dangerous, a distraction they couldn’t afford, everything that they’d tentatively been moving towards put on hold for war. Now the reality of Oliver being this close is too much for him to handle, and he can’t help think he doesn’t deserve to make the decision to choose this man all over again. He doesn’t deserve to choose the precise autumn-leaf shade of his eyes, the broomstick calluses on his hands, the scrape of his stubble and the infectious brightness of his smile. _I could have **lost** you. I could have_. There’s a scar on his arm, where a Dark Mark could have been instead. The way Oliver touches him reminds him of the reasons there isn’t, why he chose. Why he ran before it could happen, and came back to fight a battle on the opposite side.

“Marcus…” His name sounds so much softer when Oliver says it, so much more worthy. But it makes him realise that makes him realise he’s probably been talking this entire time, probably saying everything out loud between kissing him. The sudden lack of control terrifies him, because self-control was all he had to help him survive. Self-control and memories to feed the starvation in him, the hungry hollows that craved only _Oliver, Oliver_ , endlessly _Oliver_ and nothing else in between battles and double-bluffs and so very many lies to try and protect him.

Then there’s lips on his again, murmuring that Marcus is his and he doesn’t want to think any more, moans into Oliver’s mouth because it’s been so long and he’d _forgotten_ how this made him feel. _How could I forget?_ If not forgotten then deeply buried, beneath the weight of war and sorrow. The guilt pierces him more sharply than ever and for a second he can’t breathe around it, but then it doesn’t matter because Oliver’s kissing him like the world has ended, and that’s exactly what it takes to make him realise that it hasn’t, not really, not the way he thought it might.

It’s eleven in the morning. Oliver’s hands trace his skin in a way that feels like forgiveness for the waiting they both did, gentle where there’s bruising still between them.

The world is new, all over again.

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the lovely flintwoodandco, who is always an inspiration.


End file.
